


if you've a ready mind

by roseisreturning



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Wizards, F/F, Femslash February Trope Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3455876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseisreturning/pseuds/roseisreturning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cosima and Delphine attend Hogwarts, get invited to Hogsmeade by heartthrobs, and are semi-secretly in love with each other. For the "fusion" space on my femtropebingo card.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you've a ready mind

**Author's Note:**

> your neighborhood blogger strikes again with tiny cophine crushing on each other in a totally unedited fanfiction. enjoy!

She's the fourth to be Sorted, and the first to take up more than a minute or two, and you can't believe how composed she's being. You've heard your fair share of horror stories on the ride here, and if there's one thing you've learned from the second-years, it's that there's nothing worse than being where Delphine Cormier is right now.

The Hat settles on Ravenclaw for both of you, and you don't think you've ever been happier than in that moment.

You spend the rest of the night wondering how crazy it would be to tell her this.

Delphine Cormier can never figure out the riddles.

It's not that she doesn't belong in Ravenclaw or anything. ("You totally do," you tell her on your fifth night there.) But her mind just doesn't work like that. She's got the mind, just not quite the right one.

You try to explain this to her in your third year without sounding too terrible and realize you don't know how, so you give a kind of cop-out consolation and tell her that you're pretty great at them, so if she ever, like, needs to get in or whatever, you're totally down with swapping answers.

You start walking to all of your classes together that year, and when you ask her if she maybe would want to go to Hogsmeade next weekend, you swear she looks almost as thrilled as you feel when she says yes.

It's your first time going, and you immediately regret your decision to invite her.

You get lost about eighteen times, and even though she's only been one more time than you, you can't help but feel supremely embarrassed by how totally socially inept you must seem.

You buy her a hot chocolate from Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop as some kind of apology and try not to think about the couples surrounding you.

It doesn't work, but Delphine goes with you every weekend until fourth year.

She has a date then, with a Slytherin boy who is two inches shorter than her and gets Howlers more than anyone in Hogwarts. She confesses to you, back in the common room, that she hadn't thought Hogsmeade could be so unexciting, and you laugh. "It's not funny!" she says, voice a badly-contained whisper.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," you say. "Next week, you and me, right?"

"Of course," she says. "Unless you're going with that Gryffindor girl?"

"Nah," you say. "She's into someone else anyway."

Delphine smiles, and insists it doesn't mean anything.

You don't think it would be a bad thing if it did.

(The Gryffindor girl--Nicole--does go to Hogsmeade with you a couple times at the end of fourth year, and gives you, occasionally, the password to their common room. Delphine says it must be serious, but you never show, and Nicole dumps you on the train home.)

Delphine returns totally freaked out about O.W.L.s, and you can't blame her. Your parents have never put pressure on you about your grades or anything, but you can't help but feel like your life depends on that Outstanding you know you're never going to get on that god-forsaken Potions exam.

You tell this to her, when the three other girls in your dorm are asleep and it is only you two, you reading this weird Muggle book by this weird Muggle writer, and her flipping through her Ancient Runes textbook at a speed which couldn't be at all beneficial to her education.

She shrugs. "I can help you, if you want. We can work together in class, and I'll share my notes, and it will be fine."

"Yeah?"

Delphine smiles. She's still looking at her textbook, but her reading has slowed to something reasonable. "I need help with Herbology anyway."

"Perfect," you say, and you spend twelve weeks swapping gum and notes.

It works, at least, and Delphine writes to you the day she gets her scores, ecstatic. You pin the letter to your wall and write her back instantly.

You spend four consecutive Hogsmeade weekends without each other, in sixth year, doing schoolwork and going on failed dates at Madam Puddifoot's. The Thursday before four becomes five, you tell her you've just turned down seventh-year, captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, and overall heartthrob Samantha Shaddick. "I've missed you," you say to Delphine, and hope this is an appropriate level of subtlety.

"Okay," she says, and her voice is somewhere on the edge of excitement. "Hogsmeade for a few hours, and then we'll get back to work, okay?"

"Yeah," you say, and you tell yourself the elation you feel is far enough from desperation. (This is the best you'll get, you know, sweetshops and studying, and you're okay with that. You've always had a crush on Delphine, but you've loved her almost as long, and you think being her friend is just as nice.)

You're just leaving The Three Broomsticks as Delphine, hand reaching for yours ( _just as nice_ , you remind yourself, and have a harder time believing it) says, "I am--one eighth?--Veela. My parents are, um, French, of course, my grandparents, too, and then, somewhere along the line..." She makes some kind of half-formed gesture with her remaining hand and nods. "So... one eighth."

And you, without thinking, say, "Seriously?" Then, "Dude, you totally are."

She looks at you, smiling but confused, and you think, maybe, this was on the wrong side of platonic.

"Uh, sorry," you say. "Drunk. Totally drunk."

"Mhm," she says, and you know she doesn't believe you, since you're pretty sure she knows Butterbeer's alcohol content is minimal just as well as you do.

It's quiet and awkward for a few minutes, but Delphine stays closely by your side while you're looking for somewhere to go.

"You know," says Delphine, and she sounds happy, really, and you feel relieved for the easiness she has always had, "Madam Puddifoot's is nice. With you, at least." She smiles. "It reminds me of third year, you know?"

"Oh my god!" you say, even though you have been calculating the best route there for days. "It was so embarrassing. I thought I was so cool, too, you know?"

"You were cute. I remember I was thinking that. You seemed so brave. I, um, I thought third year was very hard, you know, which, looking back, it... it was not, but..." She laughs. "I think I had, um, I think I'd fallen for you, then, you know?"

"Really?" you say, because this is unfathomable to you.

"Mhm. I didn't know it, really, because you were my friend, you know? But I was thinking about it, last year, and I think that was probably it."

"I have you beat," you say, and it's a fun thing now, with Delphine in on it. "Sorting. First year."

"No!"

"Yeah. They overlap, too. We could have gotten together."

"We could have."

"Would've been ugly, though. We were pretty close, you know? How was I gonna pass my Potions O.W.L.?"

Delphine laughs, warm and low and too good to ruin with another confession.

You make it to Madam Puddifoot's eventually, scarves around necks and hand in hand, and Delphine kisses you there, mouth still unevenly warm from her hot chocolate.

You pass your Potions N.E.W.T. just over a year later.


End file.
